


Caricature Of A Tourniquette

by momentinsubtext



Series: A Different Sort Of Finale [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-18
Updated: 2010-01-18
Packaged: 2018-02-15 09:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2223651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momentinsubtext/pseuds/momentinsubtext
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are all broken men, in varying degrees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caricature Of A Tourniquette

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from my Teaspoon account.

The Doctor offers Jack his old room, offers him any room in the entire Tardis, but he refuses. He pulls a cot into the Doctor's room and props it against the wall. He's slept in worse. Recently, even.  
  
The Doctor doesn't ask why he does it, and he doesn't offer to tell. He's not entirely sure why himself, but he has a vague, itchy feeling that if he doesn't stay near the Doctor, the man will slip away and vanish. The Master just looks at him as if he knows.  
  
  
  
They don't argue.  
  
They hardly speak.  
  
Neither of the Time Lords will go near him, as if he has a bubble, private and impenetrable. If were just the Doctor he'd suspect it was because of the things they'd done to him, but it's not. The Master does it too, flinches away if he gets too close.  
  
He's a Fact, he reminds himself. He hurts them just by existing. In a remote part of his mind, he thinks there might be poetic justice in that; when he dwells on it, he just feels spiteful and sad.  
  
  
  
Sometimes, the Doctor and the Master will sit for hours with their eyes closed, their fingers at each others temples. Jack doesn't know exactly what they do, but it seems to give them some small measure of solace. He wishes he could begrudge them that.  
  
On some level, he understands the Doctor's desperate attachment to the Master. At the end of the world, when the rest of the human race has fallen, he thinks maybe even Calorien, Destroyer of the Seven Worlds might be better than no one.  
  
That doesn't make it any easier to watch.  
  
  
  
"You still love him," the Master says one morning, before the Doctor wakes up.  
  
Jack doesn't bother to deny it. "So do you," he says instead.  
  
The Master considers for a moment, then nods. "You're hurting him."  
  
"I know," Jack says.  
  
"I could fix him, if you weren't here."  
  
Jack stares up at the ceiling and sighs. "I almost wish I believed that."  
  
So quietly Jack almost doesn't hear him, the Master whispers, "So do I."  
  
  
  
One day they are sitting in the kitchen, having tea. The Master is sat at the table, staring sightlessly into a steaming teacup, his fingers tapping the drums onto the tabletop anxiously. Across the room, the Doctor is pretending to was dishes, but he's been scrubbing that same plate with too much force for at least ten minutes now, and his entire body is leaning toward the Master. Jack doesn't have words to describe how not right the world is.  
  
The plate in the Doctor's hand shatters, all the pieces falling into the dishwater. The Doctor stares uselessly at the shard remaining in his hand until the Master takes it away from him and drops it on the floor. His hands are shaking.  
  
Jack stands up so suddenly he's almost dizzy. "I can't-" Both sets of eyes are on him; he meets the Doctor's. "I understand," he says slowly. "Why you left me there."  
  
He leaves the kitchen as quickly as he can.  
  
  
  
By unspoken agreement, Jack is the only one to leave the Tardis. Once a week, like clockwork, he chooses a location (not earth, never earth) and goes for groceries. They don't eat that much, there are piles of uneaten food in the cupboard, but he goes anyway.  
  
They could leave him, take the Tardis and go, like they had planned before.  
  
He wonders what it means that they don't.  
  
He doesn't ask.  
  
  
  
Honestly, he's the least broken of them all.   
  
Years before the Doctor shot him, the universe had taught him that no one could be trusted absolutely. (It was always improbable for the Doctor to be the exception that proved the rule. A tiny voice in the back of his head had always whispered, though.)   
  
Years before that, the Doctor had taught him to forgive.  
  
  
  
"I think this is the longest I've gone without dying in years," Jack muses idly.  
  
"And I," the Doctor murmurs.  
  
"I could fix that," the Master says, not one ounce of sincerity in the words. Jack flips him off, the Doctor rolls his eyes.  
  
This is what passes for a good day.  
  
  
  
"Will you fix this?" Jack asks, holding out his vortex manipulator.  
  
The Doctor takes it silently, holds the sonic screwdriver against it, and hands it back. He doesn't meet Jack's eyes, doesn't ask why, doesn't ask him to stay. But when Jack slips it into his pocket instead of onto his wrist, he looks relieved.  
  
  
  
It doesn't get better. Weeks pass, and months, and years, and they are all just as broken as they were. They don't talk about it, but it's always there, hanging over them.  
  
Sometimes, Jack wants to take the two of them by the shoulders and shake them and shout, "You're Time Lords! If time heals all wounds then do something to fix this!"  
  
He's afraid they might listen.  
  
  
  
The Tardis sings to Jack sometimes. At first, it's only in his dreams, but soon she's with him always. During the day, if he goes to the console room, she teaches him. She whispers in the back of his mind, not in words but in concepts, ideas; slowly, he's learning how she works.  
  
One morning, he wakes up with tears on his face and realises that she's just as broken as they are.  
  
  
  
The Doctor walks in on him while he's tinkering, the Tardis humming in the back of his mind, components of her innards spread out on the floor around him.  
  
"Oh," he says, and Jack's eyes flick up at him, then away, as if he's been caught doing something dirty. "I had no idea."  
  
"It was her idea," Jack says.  
  
The Master smirks at the scandalized look on the Doctor's face. Jack holds his breath, waits for the Doctor to tell him to stop.  
  
"You know what you're doing, right?" the Doctor asks, biting his lip.  
  
Jack looks up and is completely disarmed by the trust in the Doctor's eyes. "Yeah," he says faintly, nodding.  
  
"Good," the Doctor says, and that's the end of it.  
  
  
  
"Try not to hate me," Jack whispers to the Tardis, touching the console gently. He waits until he feels her consent to push the button on his wrist-strap.  
  
When the Reapers appear, she pretends she's forgiven him.  
  
  
  
Jack trails the Doctor back to the Tardis, watches him kneel beside the Master's body and is unfazed. He remembers doing this before. It hardly takes him a week to repair the Tardis, working while the Doctor is... distracted. When he finishes, he brings her down to Earth.  
  
He hauls the Doctor up by has jacket and stares him in the eyes. " _He's. Dead,_ " he says firmly, wills the Doctor to believe him. The Doctor shakes his head, tries to pull away. Jack shakes him, just a little. "Doctor. He's dead. I'm sorry, but he's _dead_." The Doctor's composure slips and he pulls the man to him and holds on as tightly as he can. "I'm sorry. Now have a good cry, give him a proper burial, and move on."  
  
  
  
The night the Doctor burns the Master's body, Jack lays awake in his bed and stares at the ceiling. He presses his hand to the wall.  
  
"Do you hate me?" he asks, wondering if she'll understand what he's really asking.  
  
The Tardis sings him to sleep, and he dreams of fire and magic and a shooting star, and knows that he was right.  
  
  
  
The next time he sees the Doctor, they'll fly the Earth.


End file.
